US Is Still Turning Blind Eye To Saudi Crimes In Yemen – OpEd

For decades, the autocratic regime of Saudi Arabia has been a stalwart ally of the US military, while oppressing its own people and attacking others in the Middle East, particularly in Yemen.

Here, the leader of Yemen’s popular Ansarullah movement couldn’t be more accurate when he said Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are going to great lengths to further the agenda of the US administration in the Middle East region and please their masters.

In his words: Riyadh and Abu Dhabi regimes are struggling with mounting economic crises as they are pouring huge sums of money into the pockets of US statesmen. The US and Israel are doing their best in order to bring all aspects of Yemenis’ lives under their control. They are seeking to transform Yemen into a society beset with problems, diseases and ethical issues.

Few Americans know much about Saudi Arabia, but it is almost certainly America’s closest military ally in the Persian Gulf. For decades, its army has served as a proxy force for the US and its regional designs in the region. In 2015, the Saudi military and allies, with US support, launched a dirty war in Yemen in order to occupy and destroy the nation, and plunder its mineral riches on the pretext of establishing democracy.

Today, thousands of US-supported Saudi-led troops are battling the Ansarullah movement fighters in Yemen. President Donald Trump’s Arab allies are now reportedly negotiating the recruitment of thousands of Africans to join the ghastly quagmire in Yemen.

In exchange for Saudi military favors and cash, Washington has long turned a blind eye to grave human-rights abuses and brute force committed by the autocratic regime against its own people. The United States is also ignoring one of the most evil and blatant assaults on humanity in Yemen.

The situation in Yemen is so bad that even American media outlets have finally acknowledged what the United Nations reports and activists have been saying for well over three years: The Saudi-led coalition’s brutal bombing campaign, which has ravaged Yemen and created a humanitarian catastrophe, would be impossible were it not for US support.

It comes a bit late, considering the US-backed bombing began in March 2015 — and, since then, thousands of civilians have been killed; millions have been displaced; more than half of the country, at least 14 million people, are going hungry; and parts of major Yemeni cities have been pulverized.

Many media outlets are also saying what the United Nations and human rights groups have been saying for years: The United States is complicit in this carnage. It has enabled the Saudi-led coalition in many ways, including selling arms.

To that end, the US has also supplied the Saudis such indispensable assistance as intelligence, in-flight refueling of aircraft and help in identifying appropriate targets. The Saudis and their coalition will be grounded if Washington withholds its support. Instead, the US has approved the sale of $1.15 billion more in tanks and other equipment to Saudi Arabia to replace items destroyed in the war. It has also aborted any move against Riyadh at the UN that sought to end the war.

Media outlets in the United Nations also recognize numerous UN reports that have found the Saudis responsible for 60 percent of the deaths and injuries to Yemeni children, along with reports by human rights groups that document war crimes committed by the coalition.

Many of these basic facts should be more than enough for the international civil society – particularly the UN – to step in, to blast the US and the Saudi-led coalition for enabling the humanitarian crisis that’s underway in Yemen, and actually do something about it, such as stop the war, if anything at all. The bombing campaign that has caused the cholera outbreak in the poorest country in the Arab world could not happen without the United States.

Without a doubt, the humanitarian catastrophe is caused by the actions of the United States and by the actions of its NATO partners, such as Britain and France. The world community has a responsibility to stop the Saudis and their coalition, of which the US, Britain and France are a part, from using blockade and starvation as a weapon of war. This is a stain on the conscience of the Western world if they continue to enable the humanitarian crisis that’s underway in Yemen.

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